What did Kansas do to deserve this?!

Link. Did they offer up their first born?

“Free Internet: We know that not everyone is ready to commit to a gig just yet. But we want to make sure you have the opportunity to upgrade when you’re ready. So if you pre-register and your fiberhood gets installed, you’ll have the option to get a 5 megabit per second (Mbps) connection for zero monthly charge, and your home will be wired and ready for the switch. The Free Internet option will cost $0 per month, although you will have to pay a $300 construction fee (which can either be paid at once, or in $25 monthly installments).”

Admixture matters – no human bottleneck after all.

Link. “Shallow divergence times and higher effective population sizes in some human populations may not be the result of Biblical-level bottlenecks as small tribes of humans “conquered the earth”, but of thorough and long-term gene flow between populations within the genus Homo.”

In other words, no 5000 humans on the edge. Once we had fire and weapons, we swarmed the planet.

Apple screen repair and AT&T unlocked iPhones: getting an unlocked refurb back

Link. Good answers to this from Macintouch readers: “… Tell Mr. Gordon that Apple does track unlocked iPhone status for phones that are unlocked by the carrier. Second-level Apple support did this for me when I was having problems with a T-mobile SIM in my iPhone 4. First-level support apparently does not have access to this database.

…Not true — at least not for iPhones replaced under warranty. Under those conditions, the characteristics of the original phone (locked status, AppleCare, etc) are automatically transferred to the replacement phone. Once an iPhone is unlocked (after sale, by carrier’s request), it appears as such in Apple’s product database. For example, I paid $80 to unlock officially an iPhone 4 originally sold locked to Vodafone UK; when it required replacement under warranty, the local Austin, TX Apple Store gave me an American iPhone 4 and unlocked it.

If Apple won’t do this for an out-of-warranty iPhone, perhaps JG should contact Apple Executive Relations and request an exception. Anyone in an Apple Store can see on their handheld checkout device whether an iPhone is locked or not, and there’s a simple checkbox that determines whether a replacement phone is locked or not…”

Macintouch readership is the best.